Crisis
by ModernTroubadour
Summary: Moments after the Chosen One's defeat of Voldemort, time freezes. Someone shows Harry the shocking, bleak truth of the real world now that his story is over. Gen, AU, metafiction. No spoilers.
1. The Shell Outside Time

**Crisis**

Summary: What happens when you're the only real person in a world of stories? Moments after the Chosen One's defeat of Voldemort, time freezes. A different writer shows Harry the shocking, bleak truth of the real world now that his story is over. AU. No spoilers for DH.

**1. The Shell Outside of Time**

"_Avada Kedavra_!"

"_Expelliarmus_!"

The beams rebounded head-on and struck their respective casters. The dark-haired young man staggered back and the wand flew out of his hand, spinning high in an arc, but victory was his - for his enemy, Lord Voldemort, scarlet eyes still gleaming with rage, fell backwards onto the floor. The soft thump, as of a bundle of cloths dropping, was magnified by the silence. In that moment the boy knew that his nemesis was finally dead, beyond any doubt; he knew that the terrible war was finally over; and he knew that once the shock had passed the grand hall would almost literally explode with celebration.

He blinked; no, nothing had changed. The pause was too long. Shakily he walked forward, noting from the corners of his eyes the still figures of his friends, his classmates, his teachers. The trouble was that most of them were standing.

He dared to touch one, a younger boy he didn't know. Its arm was warm but there was no pulse. It stared ahead, glassy-eyed, at the equally still spectres in front.

Abruptly the living youth turned and walked over to the wand lying on the floor. For a moment he feared that it would not move, as many of the people in the hall were frozen improbably in place without visible means of support, but it came away from the worn stone floor as easily as any similar stick of polished wood will do.

Another soft noise; the boy whipped around, raising the wand defensively. He stared.

One other thing in the filled yet silent hall was moving. Voldemort's body was still on the ground, but another, apparently solid, self had stood up. Its feet were somehow through those of its prone body.

"Oh dear," it said in a familiar cold, high voice. "You weren't supposed to be aware of me. No matter; it is only a slight variation, and one easily corrected..."

It gave a ghastly smile and extended a hand. "Give me my wand, Harry. My wand, and that notebook in your pocket."


	2. The Spirit in the Machine

**Crisis**

**2. The Spirit in the Machine**

Harry stood his ground, preferring not to retreat yet loathing the thought of taking one step towards the enemy. And if the ghost, or shadow of Voldemort or whatever it was couldn't move, so much the better…

The very solid-looking ghost sighed and took a step forward, its robes swirling through those of its body. "Come on, Harry. I'll make you a deal. Give me the wand and notebook, and your story will end without any fuss. Withhold them from me, and I'll explain to you exactly what's going on."

"Are you joking?" the young man asked. "I'm keeping them – it." He motioned with the wand suspiciously. "What notebook are you talking about?"

The spectre snapped shut a silver pocket-watch and placed it back in the place a waistcoat pocket would be, except there was no such pocket on the front of its robes, and glared with its red eyes. It didn't have much of a choice. "Very well. I knew you would say that." It pointed a bony finger. "The notebook is in your left pocket. Take it out and I'll explain, and do try to keep up."

Harry felt in the robe pocket, keeping his eyes and wand trained on Lord Voldemort. He pulled a rectangular object out by the corner; it expanded to full size in his hand. Voldemort widened his eyes and presented his open palms, long fingers spread – a disturbing portrait of innocence. Defiantly, the boy backed away to the nearest wall, supported the book on the wand, and flipped it open one-handed.

'The Goblin Revolts of '06,' the first page said. He flipped to the next. 'Copernicus v. Ptolemy.' Frowning, he flipped past five pages and gasped. The next page was filled with writing from edge to edge, but his eyes skipped over the words so they could not be read. He felt the unearthly red eyes on him as he opened to a page in the middle of the book. The words there had a similar property. They moved, sometimes like water, sometimes like lightning. The black ink presented tantalizing flashes of half-familiar images, as if it could suck him in forever.

"What is it?" he murmured.

"I suppose you could call it an intrinsic property of both our existences. I confess I slipped up, and forgot it quite until now. Rather unfortunate that it ended up in your hands, though it really does go with the job, doesn't it?"

The boy snapped the book shut and glared at its purported owner. "It's a Horcrux, then? That's why you're still alive."

"No, it isn't," said the thing that looked like his enemy. "Though in principle it is similar to the diary you have already encountered, it is far, far more than that…"

Harry's grip tightened on the battered cover. "You'd better explain for real," he said. "If this is a piece of your soul, why shouldn't I destroy it like the others?"

"It is more than a piece of my soul." The speaker flung its arms wide. "In layman's terms, this notebook holds a piece of everyone in here. Everyone you've ever met and a few you haven't. A lot of your soul, and a lot of mine.

"So go ahead!" Its shout rang through the air. A storm of dust rose in the red sky's glow. "Destroy it now, if you think you should. Or you can come with me to your awakening… I offer nothing but truth."

"Why these choices?" Harry asked. "I don't have to do what you say. What is this, some kind of game?"

The simulacrum cocked its head to one side, arms akimbo. "Oh, I see. You don't trust me. Old habits die hard, and I suppose that goes for both of us…"

It _changed_; the youth started back, knocking his elbows on the stone wall. A woman stood where previously there had been a snake-faced, red-eyed demon. It tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and inspected its fingernails briefly. Then it looked up at Harry through small rectangular glasses.

"There," it said. "Much better."

* * *

"Review, gentle readers!" said the fanfic writer. (MTR)


	3. The Shell With Many Faces

**Crisis**

**3. The Shell With Many Faces**

Harry stared, dumbfounded, at the woman he had been talking to, at the stranger who had risen from the Dark Lord's dead body.

"You're not Voldemort," he said. He clutched the wand and notebook to his body. "Who are you?"

The woman closed her eyes and smiled. "Ah, you don't know how familiar that question sounds..." She laughed softly. There was something familiar in the sound. "I was Voldemort."

The boy started; it was rare to hear anyone but himself pronounce the name. "But - he -" He gestured toward the prone body, as unmoving as any of the living ones in the frozen hall.

Her eyes popped open; she glared at him, her soft features in contrast with her black hair, which was drawn back in a severe bun. "I know Voldemort is dead," she said waspishly. "I can see him as well as you can - probably better, in fact. I said I _was_. And that's not the only thing." She started counting on her fingers. "When Rubeus Hagrid brought you your Hogwarts letter, I was there. When you set the boa constrictor free, I was there. When Professor Dumbledore placed you with his own hands on the Dursleys' doorstep, I was there. When your parents were killed -"

She glanced up as if testing him; Harry did not look away.

" - I was there." The woman strode toward him, unrepentant. "I was Voldemort. I was Minerva McGonagall. I was Hermione Granger, Nymphadora Tonks, Penelope Clearwater. Bellatrix Lestrange, Doris Crockford, Amelia Bones. _Everyone_. I've been my fair share of owls as well."

The teenager with the eyes of a man began to laugh, a horrible sickly sound. "You almost had me convinced, whoever you are. Undo this." He waved at their surroundings.

She was unfazed. "Maybe a demonstration?" She pointed her hand at a diminutive boy Harry recognized. "See him? Bang." She mimicked the recoil of a gunshot. "Now look again."

Colin Creevey did not move; one moment he was standing, the next lying down as pale as death.

"He was hit by a stray curse sixteen minutes ago, Harry," she said. "It stopped his heart."

Harry felt himself run over to the body and kneel beside it. He placed a hand on its chest; it was already cool. He placed both hands there and tried to push down hard over the heart. He felt only air; his hands sank down slowly through the boy. He pulled his hands back up, feeling sick.

"Colin Creevey, sixth-year," she said. "He was annoying you during your second year. Do you see... hm..." She pointed at a corner of the hall. "Ah. Draco Malfoy. I'm sure you know what he's done to you. What would you like to have happened to him?"

Harry stared at the frozen, pale figure standing in a huddle with his parents. He felt the woman's eyes on him.

"Nothing," he said abruptly. "You're sick. You're just like Voldemort, you know that?"

"Of course," she said, grinning mirthlessly. "What, are you stupid? I am this world's greatest and its worst. But like I said, old habits..." She flicked a finger negligently. Colin was standing once more, his small face forever tense with anticipation and hope.

"I think you believe me now," she said. "You can still give me my wand and notebook. You'll never see me again."

"What - so you can stop time again or whatever and kill even more people?"

She began to laugh. The sound was curiously flat in the silence. "Let's get something straight, Harry," she said. "I haven't stopped time. And these aren't people." She stalked over to an Order member and pushed him, hard; her hand went right through his chest and out the back. She extracted her hand, holding it up. The chipped black paint on her nails were small dots against her wide, pale fingers. "They're not real," she said. Her voice was oddly soft; she bent her head, looking at her hand for a moment. "No, no - it is we who are less real - or is it more?" she said to it.

Harry cleared his throat.

She looked up and moved rapidly over to him. "Well," she said briskly, "I suppose I'd better make good on our deal. Hold onto my arm."

She sighed and lifted it a fraction further from her body, her jacket crackling. "Come on. It isn't a dance."

Harry placed his palm on her forearm. He noted distantly that part of her severe look came from sharp lines of makeup. The rest was all in the expression.

"And I'll need my wand. - Thank you." She nipped it from his fingers.

His grip on the notebook relaxed somewhat as she pushed back her right sleeve and wrote a few lines on her skin with the wandtip. "This is going to hurt in a few seconds," she muttered to herself. "Oh well, it's better than a hot soldering iron."

She smiled up at him, showing teeth. "Welcome to the real world, Harry Potter."

The Great Hall disappeared around them.

* * *

If all the seas were silver, and all the land bright gold, I should have my true-love in hand - and a Review brass-bold. (MTR)


	4. The Spirit Unseen

**Crisis**

**4. The Spirit Unseen**

It was raining. Everything was grey. The young man looked around, bewildered, before focusing on the woman.

"This is the real world?"

She smiled cynically, but the rain water was already erasing the marks on her brows, and her dimples showed. "You recognize it?"

"This is where I grew up. Privet Drive -" and he pointed down the street, "Wisteria Walk."

He looked at her. One of the only changes was that the wand in her left hand had turned into a red fountain pen. She was still dressed in a shiny jacket, skirt, and leggings. The other changes were more subtle. She seemed taller, for one.

"What's going on?" He had begun to shake. "Why am I -" He swallowed. Felt his throat, looked at his hands. "Am I younger?"

There was a mist that was bordering on fog. Harry and the woman stood amidst the rain like statues in a graveyard.

"Answer me, damn you!" His voice cracked; there was no question to it. The boy felt the rings of the notebook cut into his fingers.

She took out a small mirror from her pocket, flipped it open, and held it in front of him. He stared. There was no scar on his forehead. Shaking, he took the mirror and held it up, examining his reflection carefully. Then he hurled it to the ground.

His face was slack, his eyes swimming; his hands clawed at nothing.

Finally she said quietly, "It's true, Harry. I have no magic here. For the last four years you've been living a story only in our minds."

Her voice was hardly louder than the rain. A passing car drowned it out momentarily, a streak of silver in this marble world. " - I would explain the world fully to you, and I will. In the real world - in this world - you go to the local school. You've been living here since your parents died in a car crash." Two strands of hair escaped her bun and rose like flags in the wind. "You have a few acquaintances but no real friends. You don't really care about anything. They've diagnosed you with mild depression, not enough for you to risk your life. But you can remedy that in the future."

The notebook was leaching heat from his right armpit through his sweatshirt. "So. I've been living -" His fingers contracted suddenly about the folded glasses in his hand. He gasped, a sucking, ragged sound.

" - in limbo," she completed.

"Like an Inferius," and he started to sob in earnest. Somewhere in the back of his head he wondered at the inherent ugliness of the sound, and the beauty of the tears. The cleansing, scouring emotion inside him was like bitter rain.

She turned; he thought she would walk away, but she just stood there with her back to him as he fell to his knees. The notebook dropped to the muddy ground. The rain and wind conspired to show him his life in erratically turning pages, in some places newly obliterated by water.

"So all those people... all those years... they weren't real? How... how can you just - you stand there, and you don't - Don't you know what I'm going through? Don't you even care that my life has been one big lie?"

The woman who stood beside him replied without turning around. "Get up."

He staggered to his feet, hair streaming water and pasted to his brow, clutching the notebook to his chest. "Don't you care?" he roared.

His hand grabbed her by the arm and tried to spin her around. She rocked stiffly, eyes wide.

"I can't," she said. She took a deep shuddering breath, her nostrils flaring. "I know how you're feeling, Harry. Believe me. But at least you had the benefit of ignorance."

Her face was pale, but Harry shook her, relentless. "How can you say that?"

"You don't know what it was like, killing myself. Over and over, all for the sake of this thing that had become more important than me, my life... anything." She looked at the telephone poles in the distance, shaking her head bitterly. "Hah. At least all your decisions were your own. You don't know, Harry, how hard it is, being God... At least you're real."

"But none of them were." He flung out an arm, looking down the length of it at the faint horizon. "All of them... Ron... Hermione, everyone... they were you?"

"They came from my mind," she said quietly, fiercely. "Yes. But the things you learned... the growing up you did... that was real. Your mind wouldn't be the same without the story."

The boy yanked sodden pages out from the notebook and held them up. "But it was just a story. Just this." He threw them with all his might; they blew sideways and stuck to a fence.

And the woman replied, "Do you think it was any easier for me?"

* * *

Review, or I shall read some of my poetry at you. (MTR)


	5. The Shell, Face to Face

**Crisis**

**5. The Shell, Face to Face**

It was still raining, and the boy felt large drops of water trickle down his scalp from a tree overhead.

"I don't care what you say." His voice was growing hoarse; he backed up to a low stone fence and sat down. "I feel so small. The whole point of my life..." He held out a hand and clenched his fist. The sleeve of his sweatshirt was too wide; it slipped down, and beads of water slid down his thin forearm.

The hand relaxed. "... just gone. It's like my friends are all dead. They're worse than dead."

He paused, and added, "So why me?"

To him, everything was blurry; he knew his glasses were lying crushed on the nearby sidewalk.

She picked them up and fitted them on his face. She retreated hurriedly. "There are always two. The notebook and the wand, one to write and one to be written on. Matter and mind. The world that shapes the mind and the mind that shapes the world. The man and the machine. Or in our case - the shell, and the spirit that brings meaning to it."

She looked up, towards the blank sky. "'When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

"'For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.'

"That's a famous quotation from the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:11-12.

"You're just afraid," she continued, "disillusioned by the light you're seeing for the first time. I know how it feels. I felt all those emotions I had written, but looking back is only sorrow. And emptiness. That it was all so unnecessary, so mistaken... All those deaths, all that pain and joy - for what? This?"

They were two people standing in the rain, not having the energy to find a place out of it.

A hard wind rose; she made some sound that was carried away into it, and perhaps the water on her face was only the rain.

Harry touched the glasses, pushing them further up his nose. "Is there magic in the world?" he wanted to know.

Rain and breath fogged up her spectacles; she resorted to looking over them. "Maybe. But I only want to be rid of it."

Harry looked down at the notebook, rain soaking the edges of the pages, filling them with spreading purple-black.

There was no choice being offered to him, but he knew what to do.

The boy held out the notebook.

She looked at it, surprised. "You keep amazing me, Harry... I have all these impressions of you, and every time you manage to break one I feel uncomfortable all over again. But if you'd only stop and think..." She took it from him but did not open it. "Seven years of your life, and more. All the things the people around you didn't do... the other ways things might have happened. And this is only a notebook. It's, what, two hundred, three hundred pages? That's far too little..."

She looked at it fondly, then tossed it to one side. It landed with a soft thump in the leaf-choked gutter. It was only a notebook, mundane and real, its words reduced to meaningless blotches.

She pointed at her head. "The real notebook is in here."


	6. The Spirit On Fire

**Crisis**

Thank you Neil Gaiman, thank you _The Matrix_ - _Ghost in the Shell_ - _Death Note_ - _Promethea_ - _Harry Potter_ - and you.

**6. The Spirit On Fire**

Harry was thinking - trying to make sense of everything again. It was harder still when the woman began humming distractedly, staring out through her spectacles.

"While... you are away... my heart comes undone..."

"Who are you?" he asked, interrupting her singing.

She appraised him through her own rain-speckled glasses. "Well," she said, "perhaps you'd better call me Miss Finch."

"Is that your real name?"

"No. Not a bit."

"OK. Er. Miss Finch. Couldn't you just end the story?"

"Couldn't you just have a convenient landslide kill everyone?" she replied. "Or better yet, have the Vogons blow up the entire planet?"

"No - wait, was that a trick question?"

A van drove by; they saw their momentary reflections in its side.

"No." She fished in her jacket pocket and brought out a hairpin, which she stuck somewhere in the plastered-down hair on one side of her head. "There's an entire world in there, Harry, and it's bigger than you or me. Better too, I shouldn't wonder. Can you blame me?"

And the boy knew she was not talking about the wide, flat streets he had walked all his life, nor the places he had only heard about. Miss Finch lived in the places that would never appear on any map, the unplottable.

He turned to look at the end of the street and smiled. A memory told him there had been a tabby cat on the fence on Thursday; he'd left a bit of roast out for it, from Dudley's plate no less (which was a feat in and of itself).

"'S a funny thing about the hall of mirrors," said Miss Finch distantly. "You look at all the reflections and eventually you'll see different people. Bits of you and bits of others. As above so below and that sort of thing."

It had stopped raining; at least, water had stopped falling from the sky. The tree they were sitting under was still dripping determinedly. He took her arm and nervously coaxed her a few feet to the left.

Harry thought a bit more. "Then dreams don't end?" he challenged.

"Well, not unless Murphy grants them one -" She stared back at him. "Sorry. I was just -" Miss Finch folded her hands in her lap. "I still haven't attempted to wake up. To go on. If you really... have to know."

He touched his scar-less forehead again. "I see." There were still the Dursleys, Uncle Vernon, the Dursleys, no magic, the Dursleys, and no Hogwarts to get used to. But there was a school without Dudley in it. And however small that was, it could fill the shrinking part of him that still had hope and courage and action. After that, there was a world Outside.

The boy stood. "I think I need a cup of coffee. I'll see how Mrs Figg is -"

She raised her eyebrows. "You're only fourteen here, Harry. Tea's much better for you."

As Harry started to walk away he felt a tug on his sleeve and Miss Finch murmured, "That's why he didn't sleep. It was only partly the monsters. Mostly he was afraid that there would be a really wonderful dream and he'd still have to wake. Now you know."

"Who?" he said.

"Voldemort."

"Oh, him. It doesn't matter now," he said. "It's OK. So will you -" But he knew the answer already. Her face was devoid of expression; she stared at something he could no longer see.

"No," she said, "I don't live here. I don't think I'll see you again." She stood, a little uncertain on her feet, and walked away. The boy didn't try to see where she went.

Harry ended up keeping the notebook, though he had to surrender a few of the pages to Snowy when he lay it out to dry at Mrs Figg's house. He could almost look forward to school. He had no scar, no concerns... What could be worse after Draco Malfoy?

Somewhere where Time had never really stopped, they would be setting off fireworks and feasting; an entire world celebrating the end of Voldemort's tyranny and the triumph of the Boy Who Lived. But it wasn't his world any more. One half of the equation was gone from Miss Finch's story. Would it be enough for her to continue? He didn't know, and he wasn't sure what he'd like. It mattered less each day, anyway.

"Goodbye, Ron. Goodbye, Hermione," and he listed them, one for each couple of steps he took, until his voice grew hoarse. At last he ended with a soft "Goodbye, Tom Riddle." He frowned as his footsteps slowed; he tried to work out who he'd missed.

Then he knew. "Goodbye, Harry," he said.

**The End**


	7. Afterword

**Crisis**

**Afterword (One year, 9 months)**

I feel like Selma from _Dancer in the Dark_. I feel like when – There really ought to be two separate narratives in the movie: one, the harrowing life endured by Selma as she tries to save her son, and two, the harrowing process endured by Björk as she played Selma. The two narratives occur side by side but are not synchronous – so, like Selma in prison, crying and singing a gut-wrenching version of "My Favorite Things", right after Björk did in David Morse with a safebox. Screw you, Mr. von Trier, Mr. Antichrist, screw you – but it's thanks to you the story happened.

At the time I was writing "Crisis", I was reading Death Note and coasting along in Lit. Now? I don't know, but I'm a lot less sympathetic to the writer. I suppose it's how an inexperienced anatomist feels when they see only a mass of glistening meat inside. There's no joy in it – dissecting Literature and finding the same old thing, the only substance with enough vinegar to change being prejudice. Obviously I'm quite bitter right now!

If any of my friends or fellow writers want to do a more uplifting afterword, they need only apply at the e-mail address on my profile.


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